07/16/2008 | N9OQT We (N9OQT and W9MAP) had plans to operate the IARU contest from Walnut Point State Park campgrounds in Oakland, Illinois (40 miles south of home). We had all the camping and ham gear packed into the trailer and as we were leaving noticed a sudden change of weather. We checked the forecast and found an unexpected severe storm had moved into area - so we decided not to camp but instead operate from home. It was a good decision. We had hours of thunderstorms with torrential rain, strong winds, and frequent lightning on Friday evening (right when we would have been setting up camp and the station for the 7AM operations start). Saturday afternoon and early evening was a repeat of the bad weather. Good decision confirmed.
We spent most of Field Day waterlogged from storms, and did not want a repeat of rolling up wet tents and operating during storms.

From home we operated 20 and one-half hours of the contest, but found the band conditions poor. Some of the problem was local, mostly static and interference caused by the lightning. When it wasn't storming, the conditions were still poor with signal fluctuations and a lot of static. Also (compared to last year) we did not hit as many regions. Last year we hit New Zealand, Hawaii, and many countries in Europe. This year we mostly hit the U.S. and Canada, and a few South American countries.

Despite the less-than-ideal situation, and the dissapointment of preparing for a camping weekend and not being able to go, we still had a good operating session. We are always "fine tuning" our "field day" type operations and contest processes. This year we focussed on the length of time for operator rotations, and trying CW mode. We did not have much luck on CW, but we made 99 Phone contacts. We look forward to next year, and with a little luck - better band conditions and weather.

73s Mary (W9MAP) and Patrick (N9OQT) Twigg -- W9MAP